Psychic Life
by T1gerCat
Summary: The knife flashed in the darkness like a lightning bolt. A hiss was heard as it struck soft flesh. Pain flashed hot and cold as the life seeped from within him. A pair of icy blue eyes locked on mine and I knew what I had to do. "I'll find you" I promised him.
1. Chapter 0

Psychic Life

A/N: Hey guys, after a week with no internet I finally had time to sit down and finish this story. It came as an idea after reading a gazillion of books this week and most notably 'Dream Man' by Linda Howard. If you like my story, you should defititely give ms Howard's book a chance.

P.S. I own nothing…

**Introduction**

It was eleven-thirty when Bella Swan left the cinema with the rest of the Friday night moviegoers. The movie had been a good one, a lighthearted flick that had made her laugh aloud several times and left her in a cheerful mood.

For six long years she had simply existed. She had been physically living but mentally she lived in a constant fog. But, like she had been warned, time had done its slow work and eventually she had healed.

The radio was tuned to an easy-listening station and she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to the tempo.

— _the knife flashed down, gleaming dully. A ripping sound as it struck. The blade rose again, dripping red —_

Bella jerked back, an unconscious physical denial of the horribly real image that had just flashed in her mind.

"No"

she moaned softly to herself. She could hear her own breathing, sharp and gasping. Her hands were clenched on the steering wheel, and even that wasn't enough to stop the trembling that started at her feet and went all the way up. Dimly she watched her hands start shaking as the spasms intensified.

— _Wide eyes on a red blooded face. A shrieking voice pleading - _

It was happening again. The sight she had been cursed with was coming closer and she knew from experience that soon it would overwhelm her. Clumsily, her coordination already gone, she jerked the car to the right hoping she'd get out of the road and not cause an accident.

No sooner than she did that a strong wave of pain brought the image back. she closed her dark eyes but it kept playing behind her closed eyelids like private movie airing just for her. Her hands fell limply into her lap as the images forced her eyes to snap open. She sat in the car staring straight ahead. Her breathing became harsher.

Rough sounds began to form in her throat, but she didn't hear them. Her right hand lifted slowly from her lap and formed itself into a fist, as if she were gripping something. The fist twitched violently, three times, in a rigidly restrained stabbing motion. Then she was quiet again, her face as still and blank as a statue's, her gaze fixed and empty.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

It was the sharp rapping on the window beside Bella that brought her back.

Confused, for a moment she had no idea who she was, or where, or what was happening. A blue light was flashing in her eyes. A man was bent over, peering into the window as he tapped on it with something shiny. She didn't know him, didn't know anything. He was a stranger, and he was trying to get into her car.

Then identity, blessed identity, returned with a rush and brought reality with it. The shiny thing the man was using to rap against the glass became a flashlight. A glint on his chest became recognizable as a badge, and he, frown and commanding voice and all, was a policeman. His patrol car, blue and red lights flashing, was parked at an angle in front of hers.

The images of horror were still too close, too frighteningly real. She knew she had to block it out. She needed to get control of herself. Some vague danger was threatening; some memory that danced close to the surface but wouldn't quite crystallize.

Desperately she pushed away the fog of confusion and fumbled to roll down the window, fighting for the strength to complete even that small act. The exhaustion was bone deep, paralyzing, muscles turned to mush. Warm, humid air poured through the open window. The officer flashed the light beam around the interior of her car.

"What's the problem here, ma'am?"

She felt cotton-brained but the nonsense gruff tone of the officer had her brain working faster than it had been a mere second ago. Even so she knew better than to blurt out the truth.

"Ah… I'm sorry,"

She said. Even her voice was shaky. Desperately she sought for a believable explanation. The flashlight beam sought her face, played across her features reminding her of an excuse she had used before.

"I'm an epileptic. I began to feel dizzy and pulled over. I think I must have had a slight seizure."

"Please step out of the car, ma'am."

The trembling was back; she didn't know if her legs would hold her. But she got out, holding to the open door for support. The blue lights stabbed her eyes, and she turned her head away from the brightness as she stood shaking like a goose underwater.

"May I see your driver's license?"

Her hands felt numb. It was an effort to lean over the driver's seat and retrieve her purse. She dropped it immediately, the contents spilling half in the car, half on the ground.

Concentrating fiercely, holding the crippling fatigue at bay, she managed to pick up her wallet and get out her license. The policeman silently examined it, and then returned it to her.

"Do you need help?"

He finally asked. Her teeth were chattering from reaction.

"No, I'm feeling better now, e-except for the sh-shakes, I don't live far. I'll be able to make it home."

"Would you like for me to follow you, make sure you get there okay?"

"Yes, please,"

She said gratefully. She remembered her father telling her that policemen were her friends but personal experience taught her otherwise.

The policeman helped her pick up her belongings, and in a few moments she was behind the wheel again, edging back onto the pavement, driving with excruciating care because every movement was such an effort. Twice she caught herself as her eyes were closing, the darkness of unconsciousness inexorably closing in.

Then she was home, turning in to the driveway. She managed to get out of the car and wave at the officer. She leaned against the car, watching him drive away, and only when he turned the corner did she set herself to the task of getting inside the house. To safety.

With weak, shaking, uncooperative hands she looped the strap of her purse around her neck, so she wouldn't drop it. After pausing for a moment to gather strength, she launched herself away from the car in the direction of the front porch. She staggered like a drunk, her steps wavering, her vision fading.

She dropped heavily to her knees, feeling the resulting pain as only a dull, distant sensation. She could hear her own harsh, strained breathing, echoing hollowly. Slowly, torturously, she dragged herself up the steps, fighting for each inch, fighting to keep the darkness at bay. She reached the front door. Keys. She needed the keys to get in.

The shaking was worse; she pulled the key ring off her wrist but couldn't manage to fit the key into the lock. She couldn't see; the blackness almost complete now. Desperately she tried again, locating the lock purely by touch, concentrating with her last fierce vestige of strength on the Herculean task of guiding the key into the lock… Got it! Panting, she turned the key until she felt the click. There. Unlocked.

The door swung open, away from her. She had been leaning on the door, and with that support suddenly gone she sprawled in the doorway, half in and half out of the house. Just a little more, she silently urged herself, and struggled to her hands and knees again. Get in far enough to close the door. That's all.

It wasn't really crawling now. She dragged herself in, whimpering with the effort, but she didn't hear the noise. The door. She had to close the door. Only then could she give herself over to the blackness. Her arm waved feebly, but the door was out of reach. She sent a command to her leg and somehow it obeyed, slowly lifting, kicking—a very weak kick. But the door swung gently shut. And then the darkness overwhelmed her.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

She lay motionless on the floor as the clock ticked away the hours. The gray dawn light penetrated the room. The passing morning was marked by the path of sunlight, shining through a window, as it moved down the wall and across the floor to finally fall on her face.

Only then did she move in a restless attempt to escape the heat, and the deep coma like sleep changed into a more normal pattern. It was late afternoon when she began to rouse.

She struggled to her hands and knees, her head hanging low like a marathon runner at the end of the race. Her knees hurt. She gasped at the sharp, puzzling pain. What was wrong with her knees? And why was she on the floor?

Dazedly she looked around, recognizing her own safe, familiar house, the cozy surroundings of the small living room. Something was tangled around her, hampering her efforts to stand—she fought the twisted straps and finally hurled the thing away from her, then frowned because it looked familiar, too. Her purse, but why had her purse straps been around her neck?

It didn't matter. She was tired, so tired. Even her bones felt hollow. She used a nearby chair to steady herself and slowly got to her feet. Something was wrong with her coordination; she stumbled and lurched like a drunk on the way to a common destination: the bathroom. She found the comparison funny.

After she had taken care of her most pressing need, she fisted her hands under the sink water and drank greedily, spilling it down her chin in the process. She didn't care. She couldn't remember ever being so thirsty before. Or so tired. This was the worst it had ever been, even worse than six years ago when—

She froze, and her suddenly terrified gaze sought her own reflection in the mirror. The woman who stared back at her had her face, but it wasn't the soothingly ordinary face she had become accustomed to. It was the face from before, from six years in the past, from a life that she had thought, hoped, was finished forever.

She was paler than normal, her skin taut with strain. Dark circles lay under her eyes, dulling the dark chocolate brown to a muddy black shade. Her dark brown hair, normally so tidy, hung around her face in a mass of tangles. She looked older than her twenty-six years, her expression that of someone who has seen too much, lived through too much.

She remembered the stark, bloody vision, the storm of dark, violent emotion that had taken control of her mind, that had left her empty and exhausted, just as the visions always had. She had thought they had ended, but she had been wrong.

They were back. Or she had had a flashback. The possibility was even more frightening, for she never wanted to relive that again. But it suddenly seemed likely, for why else would she have seen that flashing knife blade, dripping scarlet as it slashed and hacked—

"Stop it,"

She said aloud, still staring at herself in the mirror.

Her mind was still sluggish, still grappling with what had happened, with the aftereffects of the long stupor. Evidently the results of a flashback were the same as if she had had a true vision. If the mind thought it was real, then the stress on the body was just as strong.

She thought about calling Seth Clearwater, the one and only person that was there six years ago but a gap of six years lay between them and she didn't want to bridge it.

Independence suited her. She had been taking care of herself ever since she was old enough to balance her mother's bills and the solitude and self-reliance were sweet. She would handle the flashbacks by herself.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The doorbell rang. Deputy Jeremy Gilbert opened one eye, glanced at the clock, and then closed it again with a muttered curse. It was seven o'clock on a Saturday morning; his first weekend off in a month, and some idiot was leaning on his doorbell.

Maybe whoever it was would go away.

The bell rang again, and was followed by two hammering knocks on the door. Muttering again, Jeremy threw aside the tangled sheet and swung naked out of bed. He grabbed the wrinkled pants he had discarded the night before and jerked them on, zipping but not fastening. Out of habit, a habit so ingrained that he never even thought about it, he picked up his 3 inches long stake from the bedside table. He never answered the door unarmed. Normally he'd use a gun but living all his life in Mystic Falls, he knew better...

He lifted one slat of the blinds to peer out, and with another curse he clicked the locks and opened the door. His partner and number 3 of the long series of boyfriends of his sister, Damon Salvatore, stood on the small porch grinning like a madman. Damon lifted an elegant black brow as he studied Jeremy's wrinkled cotton slacks.

"Nice jammies,"

"Do you know what the hell time it is?"

Jeremy barked. Damon made a show of consulting his watch-free wrist

"Seven. Why?"

He strolled inside making Jeremy curse the day and time he had ever invited the vampire inside. Jeremy slammed the door with a resounding bang then surveyed his partner fisting the stake firmer. Damon was impeccably dressed in black as always.

"Is this a very late night, or an early morning?"

"Check the calendar"

Jeremy squinted his toffee colored eyes to the simple printout calendar on the wall. Oh! Shit. Alaric, the one and only real friend Damon ever had, had been killed on this very day 6 years ago.

"Want coffee?"

He asked. He missed Alaric too and he felt guilty for forgetting the date

"Only if you don't make it"

Damon smirked with his unique way. Jeremy didn't feel bad about the jab on his coffee. He could drink his own coffee, but so far no one else could.

Ten minutes later he returned in the kitchen mostly awake and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He was thankful it was a weekend for the simple reason that he could avoid wearing a tie. He hated them and always felt like he was wearing a noose around his neck.

However Chief Liz Forbes wanted all her deputies to wear ties for some reason. Maybe she had a thing for ties... Caroline did!

Of course Damon had no problem with the ties even if you couldn't catch him dead wearing one when they weren't working. Then again, Damon was a clothes-whore who always wore Italian silk suits to work.

The two partners were opposites in a lot of ways and their species was the least of them. No matter what the circumstances, Damon always looked elegant and cultured, his clothes hanging perfectly. Jeremy was the exact opposite: he could wear the most expensive silk suit made, perfectly tailored to fit his muscled, athletic frame, and he would still look subtly unkempt.

Even in black jeans and a blacker than the night sky t-shirt Damon looked neat as he was folded over the stove cooking

"What's for breakfast?"

Jeremy asked as he dropped to one of the chairs

"Whole wheat waffles with fresh strawberries."

Damon replied letting his Italian accent seep heavily in his tone.

"There's never been any whole wheat flour in my house not even when mom cooked"

"I know. That's why I brought it with me."

Healthy stuff. Jeremy didn't mind. In fact he felt oddly touched when Damon was thinking of him as a human who needed to be healthy instead of an annoyance that had to be compelled and/or killed.

The two had sat down a week after Elena force-fed Katherine the cure and Katherine retaliated by snapping Elena's fingers off and tossing his big sister to the sun. Less than five minutes later Jeremy had become an orphan. A week after that he Damon sat down and made up over the empty coffin in Elena's grave.

Jeremy's mind unclogged when a plate of steaming waffles passed underneath his nose and the phone rang at the same time Damon's beeper went off. They looked at each other

"Shit!"

"It's Saturday, damn it! We're off today."

Jeremy barked into the receiver. He listened while he watched Damon hurriedly gulp a cup of coffee knowing the vampire could hear as well and then sighed.

"Yeah, okay. Damon's here. We're on our way."

With a waffle hanging from Jeremy's mouth and their coffee cups in hand the two got in Jeremy's department issue car. Damon sat behind the wheel so that Jeremy could eat his breakfast.

Driving through the still sleeping Mystic Falls the pair repeated out loud what Leslie the phone girl had told them.

"A man called in and said his wife was hurt. An EMT was dispatched, but a patrol officer got there first. He took one look and canceled the EMT, and called us instead."

It took those about ten minutes to reach the address, but there was no mistaking the house. The street was almost blocked with patrol cars, a paramedics van, and various other official-capacity vehicles. Uniformed officers stood around on the small lawn, while neighbors gathered in small bunches, some of the onlookers still in their nightclothes.

Grabbing a navy blue jacket and a tie with snoopy on from the back seat Jeremy exited the car and pulled them on. From the corner of his eye he looked Damon and groaned loudly.

The vampire had not only put on a blood red silk tie on but he also had chosen a black double-breasted Italian suit jacket to bring to Jeremy's house on his day off.

Sometimes he worried about Damon.

Showing their badges to the elderly close-to-retirement policeman at the door, they entered the off white house

"Shit"

Jeremy said in an undertone as he got a good look.

"And all the other bodily excretions,"

Salvatore replied. For once he wasn't cheeky but disbelieving. Murder scenes were nothing new. In fact when Damon went in a feeding frenzy, what he left behind looked worse!

"Think it's a ...?"

Jeremy asked under his breath knowing Damon could hear him. Blood was everywhere. It was splattered on the walls, on the floor, even on the ceiling. From their position to the hall they could see into the kitchen, and the bloody path wound from there through the living room, then into a small hallway and out of sight.

Damon remained quiet taking the scene in, understanding why Liz had pulled them out of their weekend off. This thing stank of newborn vampire killing. Unfortunately last time he checked, Damon was the only vampire in town.

Jeremy turned to the uniformed policeman who was guarding the door.

"Have the crime lab guys showed up yet?"

"Not yet"

"Shit"

He said again. His old hunter instincts rumbled under the surface but if the first glance was wrong then the more the crime person took to arrive, the worse the crime scene would be.

"Don't let anybody else in except for Laurie"

He told the officer. Laurie Gold was a retired crime scene investigator that retired at the ripe age of 65 from Virginia and went home to Mystic Falls to die. Unfortunately for Laurie that was just as the "accident" of the anti-vampire council had happened and Liz Forbes was forced to tell Laurie everything. Ever since Laurie had set up a team of one to assist the local police as much as he could.

"The chief Forbes is on the way."

The elderly cop said in confusion. Damon rolled his icy blue eyes

"You can let her in, too,"

He mocked the cop who nodded completely missing the mocking. Jeremy snorted once the cop stood at the doorway once again.

The house was middle-class, nothing out of the ordinary. The living room was furnished with a couch and matching chair, the required coffee table and matching lamp tables. A big brown recliner had the best spot in front of the television and was now offering support to a large man.

The man was obviously in shock as he was giving monosyllabic answers to the questions put to him by another uniformed officer who caught Damon's eye and jerked her head the other way.

Following the smell of blood, Jeremy and Damon went to the bedroom. In the room was only a photographer that seemed greener than the bedspread and was shaking as she took pictures of the victim and the room.

A nude woman lay jammed in the cramped space between the bedside table and the wall. She had been stabbed repeatedly. She had obviously tried to run, and when she had been cornered in the bedroom she had tried to fight, as evidenced by the deep defensive wounds on her arms. She had been nearly decapitated, her breasts mutilated by the sheer number of wounds, and all of her fingers had been severed.

Jeremy looked around the room, but he didn't see the missing digits. The bed was still neatly made, though splattered with blood.

"Has the weapon been found?" Jeremy asked.

The photographer that was really a cadet nodded and the camera moved with her.

"It was right beside the body. A Ginsu knife from the kitchen. She had a whole set. It looks like they really do what the ads say; I think I'll get my mother some."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Damon snorted taking charge. Usually he was okay letting Jeremy lead but there was something eerily familiar in the bloodbath around them. If Stefan hadn't been in New Orleans with Caroline and the Originals, he'd bet his precious that his brother had gone all ripper on the poor woman.

"What about her fingers?"

He asked the photographer who stood straighter letting the heavy camera rest on her chest.

"Nope. No sign of 'em."

Jeremy sighed.

"Guess we got to talk to the husband"

Damon agreed with a nod and the two walked the short distance to the living room. Most homicides on TV were committed by someone who knows the victim. If they were lucky, it was hubby dearest who went nuts and used his wife as practice for deer hunting.

Jeremy caught the eye of the officer who was talking to the husband who muttered something and walked over to them

"Has he said anything?"

Damon asked. The officer shook his head.

"Most of the time he won't answer the questions. He did say that his wife's name is Anna, and his name is Jim, Jim Jones. They've lived here twenty three years."

"Is he the one who called it in?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. We'll take it now."

Jeremy and Damon went over to Mr. Jones. Jeremy sat down on the couch and Damon moved the other chair closer before sitting down, effectively sandwiching Mr. Jones between them.

"Mr. Jones, I'm Detective Gilbert and this is Detective Salvatore. We'd like to talk to you, ask you a few questions."

Mr. Jones was staring at the floor. His big hands hung loosely over the padded arms of the recliner. When he spoke his voice was dull, empty.

"Sure,"

"Are you the one who found your wife?"

He didn't answer, just continued to stare at the floor. Damon shook his head and took over again letting the slightest bit of compulsion seep in his tone rousing Mr. Jones

"Sir, I know it's tough, but we need your cooperation. Are you the person who called the police?"

Slowly he shook his head.

"I didn't call no police. I called 911."

"What time did you call?"

"Dunno,"

Jones muttered. He took a deep breath and seemed to make an effort to concentrate. The compulsion was doing its job

"Seven-thirty or thereabouts, I guess. I got off work at seven. It takes about twenty, twenty-five minutes to drive home."

Damon caught Jeremy's glance over the cowering man. Both their noses told them Mrs. Jones had been dead for several hours. Meredith Fell, who acted as the medical examiner, would establish the time of death, and if Mr. Jones had been at work during that time, then they'd have to start looking at other possibilities. Maybe she'd had a boyfriend; maybe someone had been keeping Mr. Jones' bed warm for him while he worked third shift. Or maybe someone who had to feed came by.

"Where do you work?"

Jones stirred and named a local trucking company.

"Do you normally work third shift?"

"Yeah. I work on the dock, loading and unloading trailers. Most freight comes in at night, see, for delivery during the day."

"What time did you leave to go to work last night?"

"Usual time. Around ten."

"Do you punch a time card?"

"Yeah."

"Do you punch in as soon as you get there, or wait until time for your shift to start?"

"As soon as I get there. The shift starts at ten-thirty. We have half an hour to eat, and get off at seven."

"Do you have to clock in and out for lunch?"

"Yeah."

It looked like Mr. Jones night would be pretty much accounted for. They would check out everything he'd told them, of course, but that wouldn't be any problem.

"Did you notice anything unusual this morning?"

Jeremy asked. Mr. Jones threw him a caustic glare identical tot he one Mr. Tanner used to throw him.

"Before you came in the house, I mean."

"No. Well, the door was locked. Annie usually gets up and unlocks it for me, then starts cooking breakfast."

"Do you usually come in the front door or the back door?"

"Back."

"What did you see when you opened the door?"

Mr. Jones' chin trembled.

"Nothing, at first. The shades were pulled and the lights weren't on. It was dark. I figured Annie had overslept."

"What did you do?"

"Turned on the light in the kitchen."

"What did you see then?"

Mr. Jones swallowed. He opened his mouth but couldn't speak. He put his hand to his eyes.

"B-Blood, All—all over the place. Except—it looked like ketchup, at first. I thought she'd dropped a bottle of ketchup and broken it, the way it was splattered. Then—then I knew what it was. It scared me. I thought she must have cut herself, real bad. I yelled her name and ran to the bedroom, looking for her."

He stopped, unable to carry the tale any further. He began to shake, and didn't notice when Jeremy and Damon got up and stepped away, leaving him alone with his grief and horror.

Laurie nodded at them as he arrived lugging his big toolbox sized bag and disappeared into the bedroom to gather what evidence he could salvage from the carnage.

Sheriff Liz Forbes parked her car and jogged to them. Laurie was too old to drive so usually she'd be his driver. No one else wanted the old man but his gruff tones and fatherly disposition reminded Liz of her own diseased father.

"Holy shit,"

She muttered looking at all the blood.

"That seems to be the consensus,"

Damon snickered again earning an elbow to his stomach. Liz Forbes was the only founder parent alive and sometimes she liked to mother, or smother as Damon would say, all of them. Unfortunately that included Damon whose stomach had been repeatedly attacked by her very sharp elbows.

"What have you got so far?"

Liz asked, her tone businesslike

"We have a lady who was hacked to pieces, and a husband who was at work. We'll check out his alibi, but my gut says he's in the clear,"

Jeremy answered. Liz sighed agreeing

"We have to move fast on this one. Especially if..."

She let her voice fade out. All three of them knew what she meant.


	6. Chapter 05

**Chapter 5**

It hadn't been a flashback.

Bella knew because she had been having real flashbacks all day, frightening memories that swept over her, overwhelmed her, and left her limp and tired when her own reality returned.

Bella knew the details of her own particular nightmare, was as familiar with them as she was with her face; the details that had been flashing in her brain all day were new, different.

When she had awoken from her stupor the afternoon before, she had been able to remember little more than the image of the slashing knife, and she had still been so tired that she had barely been able to function. She had gone to bed early and slept deeply, dreamlessly, until almost dawn when the details began to surface. The bouts of memory had happened all day long; she would barely recover from one when another, vivid and horrible, would surge into her consciousness.

It had never happened this way before; the visions had always been overwhelming and exhausting, yes, but she had always been able to immediately recall them.

A woman had been murdered. It had been real. God help her, the Sight had returned. She didn't know who the victim was and couldn't tell where it had happened. Always before she had had at least an inkling, had grasped some clues to identity and location, but not this time.

She felt disoriented, her mind reaching out but unable to find the signal, like a compass needle spinning in search of a magnetic pole that wasn't there.

She had seen the murder happen over and over in her mind, and each time more details had surfaced, as if a wind were blowing away layers of fog. And each time she roused from a replay of the vision, more exhausted than before, she had been more horrified.

She was seeing it through the killer's eyes.

It had been a sick mind that had caught hers, the mental force of his rage that had blasted through six years of blank, blessed nothingness and jolted her, once again, into extra-sensory awareness.

Not that he had targeted her; he hadn't. The enormous surge of mental energy had been aimless, without design; he hadn't known what he was doing.

Normal people never imagined that there were people like her out there, people with minds so sensitive that they could pick up the electrical signals of thought, read the lingering energy patterns of long-ago events; even divine the forming patterns of things that hadn't yet happened.

Not that this man was normal in any sense other than his lack of extra sensorial sensitivity, but Bella had long ago made the distinction to herself: Normal people were those who didn't know. She had the knowing, and it had forever set her apart, until six years ago when she had been caught in a nightmare that still haunted her.

Traumatized, that part of her brain had shut down. For six years she had lived as a normal person, and she had enjoyed it. She wanted that life to continue. She had slowly, over the years, let herself come to believe that the knowing would never return.

She had been wrong.

Perhaps it had taken this long for her mind to heal, but the visions were back, stronger and more exhausting than ever before.

And seen through the eyes of a murderer.

She had looked through the Sunday paper but hadn't been able to concentrate; the memory flashes had been too frequent, too strong. She hadn't found any mention of a murder that had triggered a response. Maybe it had been there and she had simply overlooked it; she didn't know. Maybe it hadn't happened anywhere nearby, but by some freak chance she had happened to catch the killer's mental signals.

If the woman had lived in some other town, local newspapers wouldn't carry it. Bella would never know the woman's identity or location.

Part of her was a coward. She didn't want to know, didn't want to become part of that life again. She had built something safe and solid here in Mystic Falls, finding the small town comforting instead of suffocating like she used to.

Of course if the Sight truly was coming back the smaller than Forks population would feel suffocating. She knew exactly what would happen: the disbelief, followed by derision. Then, when people were forced to accept the truth, they would become suspicious and afraid. They would be willing to use her talent, but they wouldn't want to be friends. People would avoid her; little kids would daringly peek in her windows and run, screaming, if she looked back. The older kids would call her "the witch."

No, she would have to be a fool to get involved in that again. But she couldn't stop wondering about the woman. There was an aching need to at least know her name. When someone died, at least her name should be known, a tiny link with immortality that said: This person was here. This person existed. Without a name, there was only a blank. So now, still shaking with fatigue, she turned on the television and waited, in a daze, for the local news to come on. She almost dozed several times, but shook herself awake.

The television screen flickered as the talking heads segued into another story, this time devoting an entire minute to an in-depth look at the effect of crack and gangs on inner-city neighborhoods.

"How hard can it be to find the local potheads?"

Bella snarled to herself. She always hated reporters because of their need to blow up or even make up news.

She continued watching as a pretty woman began telling a teary story on how a local teacher had given up his own life to save a teenage girl six years ago and students of Mystic High put flowers on his grave giving thanks to a role model.

Bella rolled her eyes. Typical reporters. The news was a day old and it would have been much more sellable had the cute blond actually have expressions...

She felt herself begin to give in to the sleep and slid sideways on the sofa beginning to doze off. She must have slept for a bit because suddenly the expressionless presenter shouted a name - Anna Jones - and Bella jerked violently as the name blared both inside and outside of her head, her inner awareness amplifying the name just spoken by the television announcer.

She struggled to an upright position on the couch, her heart pounding frantically against her ribs and she heard her own panicked breathing, fast and shallow, as she stared at the screen.

"The Mystic Falls police aren't releasing any information about the stabbing murder of Mrs. Jones, as the slaying is still under investigation."

A photo of the victim was flashed on the screen. Anna Jones. That was the woman Bella had seen in the vision. She had never heard the name before, but there was a strong sense of recognition, too strong to ignore. Just hearing the name spoken on television had been like a horn sounding in her head. So it was true, it was real. All of it.

The knowing was back. And it would tear her life apart again if she did anything about it.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

On Monday morning Jeremy stared at the photographs of the murder scene, examining each minute detail over and over. They had nothing to go on, damn it, absolutely nothing.

A neighbor across the street had heard a dog bark around eleven, she thought, but it had stopped and she hadn't thought anything else about it until they had questioned her. Mr. Jones had definitely been at work; he had been helping another dock man unload a trailer, his time completely accounted for.

"We don't have shit,"

Twenty two year old Jeremy Gilbert muttered, tossing the photographs onto his desk. Damon grunted in agreement from his desk across from Jeremy's.

They were both tired; they had scarcely stopped in the forty-eight hours since they had first entered the Jones home. The only thing that kept them awake was coffee for Jeremy who suspected his blood was a coffee brown color by now and blood from the not-so secret stash Damon kept

Neither had a clue on how they ended up being policemen but neither fretted about it either. After more than half bottle of Jack, Damon joked once that Jeremy was on his way to becoming the next sheriff since Caroline had no interest in the blue uniform and Jeremy had thrown a stake at him. Actually he threw it straight to a leather sofa but that was alright because Jeremy saw quadruplets for his friend at the time

He leaned back in his chair and propped his own feet on the desk. Dan Post instead of Gucci, and scuffed at that. What the hell. He and Damon eyed each other across their four feet and two desks. Sometimes they did their best brainwork in this position.

"Pizza delivery would involve a stranger coming to the house, and there's a fifty-fifty chance the cable company would send out a repairman."

Damon's lean, dark face was thoughtful.

"Even if a repairman had gone out to the house, it wouldn't have been at night."

"And it would probably be too much to hope that Mrs. Jones ordered a pizza that late at night, to pig out all by herself. The analysis of her stomach contents…"

Jeremy stretched out his right arm and sifted through the scattered papers on his desk, finally plucking the one he wanted out of the mess.

"Here it is. Meredith says that she hadn't eaten anything for at least four or five hours. No pizza. So the pizza in the trash was from earlier, at least lunch. Maybe a day or two."

For all the tantalizing possibilities, in his experience it never had been a pizza deliverer.

"We can find out from Mr. Jones exactly when they ordered the pizza."

"And the cable company can tell us if they had to send a repairman out to the Jones's house."

"So we have definitely one, and possibly two, strangers who have been to the house. A pizza delivery boy would have been kept outside, but he could still have seen her. A repairman might actually have been in the house."

"Women chat to repairmen,"

Jeremy said, both Miranda and Jenna would entrust their life stories to the repairmen who never listened and only grunted.

"Maybe she asked him to please be quiet, since her husband worked third shift and was asleep in the bedroom. The guy says, yeah, he used to work third, too, and it was rough. Where does her husband work? And she tells him, even throws in what time hubby leaves, when he gets home. Why should she worry? After all, would the cable company have hired him if he hadn't been an upstanding citizen? Women don't think anything about letting a repairman in and spilling their guts to him while he's working."

"Okay."

Damon got a pad and propped it on his legs.

"One: We check with Mr. Jones on when the pizza was actually delivered, and maybe a description of the delivery boy."

"Delivery person. It could've been a girl. So could a cable repairman."

Damon threw a mocking glare to Jeremy who gave him a cheeky smile back. Both had been verbally abused by Matt who insisted on having girls do the deliveries once he took over the Grill. Something about the extra high tips girls brought was the reasoning

"Possible. If not, then we get a name from the pizza place and go from there. Two: Do the same with the cable company."

Jeremy felt better. At least they were working, had come up with a direction in which to start looking. His phone rang. It was the intercom line. He punched the button and lifted the receiver.

"Gilbert"

"Jeremy, grab Methuselah and come to my office"

Liz said in an important tone that lacked all friendliness and hung up before Damon's annoyed 'Hey' could be heard. Liz's office was in the back of the station and was separated from the deputies by a wall and two big interior windows; they saw the woman with the lieutenant, sitting with her back to the door.

"Who is she?"

Jeremy murmured too quiet for anyone with normal hearing to understand more than a couph. Damon, who did hear, shook his head and unknowingly straightened his black shirt. Jeremy rapped once on the glass, and Liz gestured them inside.

"Come on in, and close the door,"

He said. As soon as they were inside she said,

"Bella Swan, this is Detective"

Liz hated the word 'deputy' ever since Damon ate most of them

"Gilbert and Detective Salvatore. They're in charge of the Jones case. Miss Swan has some interesting information."


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Liz told the men letting an undertone of importance in her voice. When Bella Swan came in her office an hour ago and span her tale, Liz immediately believed her. However she knew how territorial Damon and Jeremy could be and she had no intention of letting them mark their supernatural territory in the town.

Not that seeing two (over)grown men trying to piss at the town borders wouldn't be funny though.

Damon took a seat on the other side of the Liz's desk, away from Miss Swan. Jeremy leaned against the wall on her other side, out of her direct line of vision but where he could still see her face. She had barely glanced at either him or Damon; nor was she looking at Liz. Instead she seemed to be concentrating on the blinds that shaded the outside windows.

It was clear she wasn't going to let them overwhelm her and that she was there to give them something, not ask.

A short silence fell as she seemed to be bracing herself. Jeremy eyed her curiously. She was so tense; he could almost see her muscles tighten. There was something vaguely intriguing about her, something that kept him looking at her. She wasn't a beauty, though she was even-featured and certainly not hard on the eyes, but she sure didn't do anything to attract attention. She wore plain black boots, a pair black jeans that came down to cover the short heels of her boots and a sleeveless white blouse.

She had nice dark hair, but it had been pulled back into one of those severe twists Elena never did. A bit older than him, maybe in her mid-twenties but had an air of elegance and maturity that made him want to raise his hand to ask for a bathroom pass.

Her hands were tightly clenched in her lap. He found himself watching them: slim, fine-boned hands, free of any jewelry save from a charm bracelet on her right wrist that caught his eye and the glistening sparkle made him want to look away.

"I'm a psychic"

She said blandly. Jeremy barely kept himself from snorting.

"I truly, utterly hate the term but that's all you need to know"

Damon smiled amused. The pursing of those full lips convinced him of her annoyance with the word and Jeremy's mirth filled eyes made him want to laugh as well. He had given his own once over but, for once, while Jeremy examined the package he had seen deeper.

In her dark eyes he could see the terror and tiredness she battled. Her skin had a thin layer of makeup but the paint couldn't hide the paleness and the dark shadows under her eyes from his vision.

"Last Friday night I was driving home from a late movie,"

She continued in a flat little monotone that didn't diminish the low, raspy quality of her voice. A porno phone operator's voice, he thought for a moment and the idea wrapped him like a vice.

"It was about eleven-thirty when I left the theater. I had just left the expressway when I began to have a vision of a murder that was taking place. The… visions are overwhelming. I managed to pull off the street."

She paused, as if reluctant to continue. Liz watched her lick her full lips, pass those long fingers over the bracelet on her right hand and taking a deep breath.

"I see it through his eyes; He climbed in through a window."

Jeremy stiffened, his eyes leaving her cleavage and shifting to her face. Damon's attention had sharpened as well.

"It's dark in the room. He waits there until she's alone. He can hear her in the kitchen, talking to her husband. The husband leaves. He waits until the husband's car has pulled out of the driveway, and then he opens the door and starts the stalk. He feels like a hunter after game."

"But she's easy prey. She's in the kitchen, just pouring a cup of coffee. He pulls a knife from the set that's sitting there, waiting for him. She hears him and turns. She says, 'James?' but then she sees him and opens her mouth to scream."

"He's too close. He's already on her, his hand over her mouth, the knife at her throat."

Bella Keen stopped talking. Jeremy kept his concentration on her face. She was pale now, he noticed, colorless except for the full bloom of her lips. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck lifting in response to that eerie present tense she was using when she spoke, as if the murder were happening right now.

"Go on,"

Damon urged her. It was a moment before she resumed, and her tone was even flatter than before.

"He makes her take off her nightgown. She's crying, begging him not to hurt her. He likes that. He wants her to beg him. He wants her to think that she'll be okay if she just does as he says. It's more fun that way, when she realizes—"

She interrupted herself, leaving the sentence unfinished. After another moment she resumed.

"He uses a condom. She's grateful for that. She tells him thank you. He's easy with her, almost gentle. She starts to relax, even though she's still crying, because he isn't hurting her and she thinks he'll just leave when he's finished. He knows how the stupid bitches think"

"When he's through, he helps her to her feet. He holds her hand. He bends down and kisses her cheek. She just stands there, until she feels the knife. He keeps the first cut shallow, enough to let her know what's going to happen, so he can see the look in her eyes when she panics, but the cut shouldn't be so bad that it slows down the chase. There wouldn't be any fun in that"

"She panics; she screams and tries to run, and the rage in him is let loose. He's held it in check all this time, toying with her, enjoying her fear and humiliation, allowing her to hope, but now he can let it out. Now he can do what he came for. This is what he likes best, the complete terror he can see in her eyes, the feeling of invincibility. He can do anything he wants to her. He has total power over her, and he revels in it. He is her god; her life or death is his choice now, his decision. But it's death, of course, because that's what he enjoys most"

"She's fighting, but the pain and loss of blood have slowed her down. She makes it into the bedroom and falls down. He's disappointed; he wanted the fight to go on longer. It makes him angry that she's so weak. He bends over to slice her throat, to finish it, and the bitch turns on him. She's been faking it. She hits at him. He'd meant to make it quick, but now he'll show her, she should never have tried to trick him. The rage is like a hot red balloon, swelling up and filling him. He slashes at her over and over, until he's tired. No, not tired. He's too powerful to be tired. Bored. It was over too soon; she's learned her lesson. She hadn't been as much fun as he'd hoped."

Silence fell. After a few seconds, Jeremy realized that she was finished. She still sat stiffly in the chair, her gaze locked on the window blinds.

Liz's eyes shift from the hunter to the vampire.

"Well?"

She demanded impatiently.

"Well, what?"

Jeremy straightened away from the wall. Rage had slowly built inside him as he had listened to the flat, emotionless recital, but it was a cold, controlled anger. It was similar to how he felt once he had turned to a hunter and was near vampires.

Then again this bitch wasn't one. She had been there and seen it all and sold them a bullshit story to jerk them around.

"What do you think?"

Liz snapped, irritated that he had to ask. Sometimes this kid forgot who signed his paychecks and it irked Liz to no end.

"A psychic? Get real, Liz. That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard."

Damon remained quiet letting Jeremy steal the show with his anger. His eyes remained locked on Miss Swan who stirred, slowly unknotting her hands as if the movement were difficult. Just as slowly she turned her head and looked at Damon for a split second before turning her eyes to the irate Jeremy.

Despite his dead calmness, Damon's stomach muscles contracted abruptly in reaction. No wonder Liz had been taken in! Her eyes were the deep, dark, fathomless chocolate brown of the mountains. There was something exotic about them, other than the richness of color. A sort of otherworldliness that he couldn't quite grasp. The expression in them, however, was easy to read, and Damon knew beyond a doubt that his partner hadn't exactly overwhelmed her with his charm.

Bella stood and faced Jeremy, squaring off with him as if they were two adversaries in the old West about to draw down on each other. Her face had gone calm and curiously remote.

"I've told you what happened. You can believe it or not; it doesn't make any difference to me."

She said in a clear, deliberate voice.

"It should,"

He replied just as deliberately. She didn't ask why, though he paused for her to do just that. Instead her mouth twitched into a tiny, humorless smile.

"I realize that I just became your prime suspect, So why don't I save your time and mine by telling you that my address is 2411 Hazelwood, and my telephone number is 555-9909."

"You know the routine, I'm not surprised."

He moved a step closer to her, close enough that she had to look down to maintain eye contact (something that Jeremy didn't like one bit), close enough to intrude into her space and subtly threaten her.

"Or maybe you're just reading my mind, since you're psychic."

He put an unflattering emphasis on the last word.

"Maybe you can tell me what comes next, unless you need a crystal ball to tell you what I'm thinking."

"Oh, that doesn't take a mind reader, but then you aren't very original."

She paused, and then gave him that little smile again.

"I have no intention of leaving town."

She wasn't backing down, and Damon's stomach muscles knotted again. At first glance she had looked like a drab, a nonentity afraid of making herself more attractive in any way, but the first look into her eyes had forcibly changed that opinion. This woman didn't lack self-confidence, and she wasn't the least bit intimidated.

Damon took a gentle breath and his mouth watered. a sweet, soft scent that had nothing to do with perfume and everything to do with female flesh. He felt an urgent need to pull her behind him and bare his fangs to Jeremy.

Jeremy, who caught all that, became even angrier

"See that you don't. Is there anything else you see in your crystal ball, anything you want to tell me?"

His voice was low and harsh.

"Of course,"

She purred, and the sudden glint in her blue eyes told him that he'd walked right into that one.

"Go to hell. Deputy"

She threw that last word deliberately, reminding harshly that he was nothing but a small town cop. Damon fought off a smirk as the woman walked out securely and hit with her shoulder the thin air over Jeremy's.

She had won the first round, not that the vampire was counting or anything.


	9. Chapter 08 AN

**A/N: **

Hey guys Vampires-Suck1993 asked me to remind you that the deadline for submitting your entries for his/her competition is today. I just got the mail myself so I'm not sure how good my own reminder to you will be but there you have it.

So go ahead while you still have time and above all have fun :D

Xoxo T1gerCat

**Chapter 8**

Liz glared at Jeremy

"Dammit, Jeremy! Did you have to be such an asshole? The woman came in here trying to help, for Christ sake! She told us some amazing stuff—"

"Amazing, my ass,"

Jeremy interrupted, still aware of the fury boiling up inside, though now at least half of it was directed at himself.

"If she didn't do it herself, then she was there when it was done. She did it, or she's an accomplice, and she's daring us to catch her by feeding us this loony psychic story."

"She knew details that no one but the killer, or killers, could have known,"

Damon said tersely.

"Hell, we've all heard the kind of crap those so-called psychics describe in their so-called visions"

"That wasn't a psychic vision she described; it was an eyewitness account. The lady was there when it happened, and she just placed herself at the top of my list."

Jeremy insisted, refusing to even acknowledge Bonnie and how her own visions had helped him in his life more than once. Bonnie was a witch and his friend. This bitch was a phony. End of story

"She couldn't have done it,"

Liz protested again. Jeremy agreed

"Not alone, she wouldn't have been strong enough."

"We definitely should check this lady out"

Damon said but no one caught the double entree in his voice. Liz sighed again sitting back down in her chair using the big desk between them as a reminder on who the boss was

"I don't care if you think it was a goofy idea, but psychics have really helped in some cases I've been involved in."

Jeremy snorted.

"As far as I can tell, a psychic is just a psychotic with a couple of letters missing."

Liz threw a sharp glare to the young man

"I wonder what Bonnie would say if she heard that. Remember her? Your witch girlfriend and my daughter's best friend?"

Liz's tone was caustic and if Jeremy had been wiling to be reasonable he'd see and hear the row of curses Bonnie's ghost from behind Liz was showering him with. Jeremy was right behind Damon as they walked back to their desks.

"What the hell's the matter with you?"

He snapped to the vampire

"What do you mean? I should have grabbed a pitchfork and a torch and chase her? Last time I checked it's usually the other way around"

Damon replied purposely aloof.

"No, I mean you had a hard-on the size of a goddamn nightstick"

Jeremy snapped making Damon raise both eyebrows.

"At least I didn't insult her. Liar or honest, you just chased away our only lead. Good job Jeremy"

He mocked the hunter before taking a long swing of his coffee mug that was filled with a red liquid.

Jeremy glared at his partner, but kept his mouth shut.

It had never made her angry before. Bella was used to mingled disbelief and derision, hell her own father never believed her until it was too late, but she had always felt an almost desperate need to make people believe, to convince them that she could help, that her claims were true.

She felt no such need where Deputy Jeremy was concerned. She didn't give a damn what that man-child thought, assuming he was capable of such an advanced mental process.

Then again anyone who called their much older, female boss by her first name didn't need to be able to think. Usually a long dick would be enough. She shuddered with her thoughts. When had she become such a bitch?

Her movements were jerky as she negotiated the heavy traffic, and with sheer force of will she made herself calm down before she caused an accident. As late as she was, it was difficult to find a parking space at the school where she worked. Once she did, she sat in her car for several minutes; she took several deep breaths needing to find calmness before going to her classroom.

Like Renee had done, Bella had become a kindergarten teacher allowing the innocence of children sooth her tired psyche. Children so young thirsted for knowledge and that was something she would give with all her might.

She loved teaching and it felt good to support herself, even though she knew she didn't have to. Phil, Renee and Charlie all had life insurance policies and she had inherited their houses but working was something she needed to do. She needed one bit of normalcy in her life. Was it too much to ask for?

"Hey, doll, found anything interesting yet?"

Detective Jane North patted Jeremy on the head as she passed behind his chair. She was a tall, lanky, woman, with a habitually cheerful and amused expression that invited smiles. She was blissfully married to the football coach, size huge, who had replaced Mr. Tanner and immediately after signing his job position papers, he signed a life insurance policy.

Damon had joked at the time that at least the coach would be prepared. Only Stefan had found it hilarious. Jeremy still upset scowled at her.

"This should have been your case. We had the weekend off, damn it."

"Sorry,"

She said not feeling it, giving Damon a smile of greeting when he looked up from the telephone that had been welded to his ear for most of the morning.

"Anything I can do to help, any leads to run down? The only other case is a few joints Eric found at school but you've graduated"

Jane teased Jeremy who got an unappealing shade of chili red and turned back to his work ignoring her. Not bothering to hold in her chuckle Jane returned to her own desk.

Desk work was mostly boring; it involved a lot of talking on the telephone, going through papers, or going out to talk to people face-to-face. Jeremy had spent the last few hours involved in the first two activities. Usually Damon handled this part of the job better than he did, being more patient, but this time he had set himself to it with grim determination. What had happened to Anna Jones should never happen to anyone, but it really pissed him off that Bella Swan chick had all but rubbed his nose in

Her knowledge of it.

"Got anything yet?"

Damon asked frustration plain in his voice as he hung up the telephone.

"I came up empty on both the pizza delivery and the cable company. The entire street had trouble with the cable, and it was repaired on the line, over a block away. It wasn't necessary to enter any residence. And the pizza was delivered by a sixteen-year-old girl. The husband is the one who paid her, anyway. Dead end."

"Nothing here, either. Yet"

Jeremy muttered. Bella Swan had never been arrested, had never even had a parking ticket, as far as he could find. He didn't let that discourage him. Maybe the name was an alias. It sounded too fake as if it was lifted from a young adult book.

People could be tracked through Social Security numbers, tax returns, any number of means. He knew where she lived, where she worked and what kind of car she drove. He'd already sent out various requests, such as for a record of calls she'd made and received; by the time he was finished, he'd even know her bra size.

He bet Damon could make a damn good guess at that right now. The thought annoyed him even more... He choked with rage sp hard that images of him stabbing her again and again with stakes until she resembled a human sized pin cushion developed in front of his eyes.

Damon eyed his partner. He agreed that Anna Jones had endured before she'd died, and Bella Swan had proved to them that she knew something while they new nothing but it was Jeremy who upset him more. The kid was never calm and fun after high school, who would be in his shoes? but the surface calmness Jeremy eluded right now scared him to the bone.

For the first time in 6 years, he saw the Hunter and hoped that Bella wasn't any sort of supernatural being. For her own safety.


	10. Chapter 09

**Chapter 9**

Jeremy's left fist was pulsing. As much as he tried with all his might he couldn't get the urges to stop. He was convinced that that chick was trying to turn the murder into a sideshow.

He wouldn't be surprised to get a call from the local media, asking if there was any truth to the rumor that they were working with a psychic to find the murderer. Not that it wouldn't be a good idea to use it and lure the killer to her..

They had leads of their own and would find out the killer themselves. They didn't need to cute brunette fake psychic bitch guiding them another direction whether it was the right or the wrong one..

Damon had spent the afternoon checking out bella. the neighbors on the left, born and bred in Mystic Falls, were certain of that. they described Bella as quiet, friendly, and always accommodating about collecting their newspaper and mail whenever they visited family, and feeding their cat. Not many neighbors were so friendly.

"Have you noticed anyone coming or going from the house? Does she have many visitors?"

"Not that I've seen, though of course, we don't just sit and watch Bella's house,but I don't think I've ever noticed any visitors over there. Have you, dear?"

'Dear' scratched his jaw.

"Don't think so. She's just about the perfect neighbor, you know. Always speaks when we see her, don't have her nose in the air like some. Keeps her yard neat, too."

"Not any visitors? Ever? No family? Brothers, sisters? Girlfriends"

he stressed almost growling.

"No,"

the wife repeated a bit testily.

"No one. She even takes care of the yard work herself, instead of hiring a neighborhood boy. I've never seen anyone over there except for the mailman."

Dead end. He was frankly puzzled by it.

"Does she go out much?"

"Not often, no. She sees an occasional movie, I think. I can't believe she's in any sort of trouble. Why, when Bill broke his leg two years ago, she'd stay with him whenever I had to go out."

the wife glared at him. Damon gaveher a charming smile and stood to leave.

"Thanks for your help."

The neighbors on the right had basically the same comments, except the lady of the house had two squalling rugrats hanging on her legs and couldn't be expected to pay a lot of attention to the comings and goings next door. No, she'd never seen anyone visiting Bella.

Damon sat inside his classic car, staring at the house. It was a neat, solid little bungalow, typical of houses built in the fifties, though it had been spruced up with a cool, sand-colored paint and enlivened with the kind of touches women put on their nests, the trim done in ice cream colors. The front porch was decorated with a couple of ferns and some pinkish flowers, all in pots hanging from hooks. So what had he just found out? That the most likely suspect sounded like some kind of nun?

He was flooded with relief. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the pain in bella's dark ones. The same pain he saw in his own when he let his guard down.

Bella Swan saw him immediately when she left the school. He was alone in his car, just sitting there, watching her. The late afternoon sunshine glinted off the windshield and prevented her from clearly seeing his face, but she knew it was him. Deputy Childish.

He stayed there, the dirty white car tight on her rear bumper, as she threaded her way through the normal afternoon traffic. She thought about stepping on the gas but then she remember something Edward had told her. When someone can go fast the most annoying thing you can do, is go slow.

with a smirk on her face she lowered her speed to 10 miles below the limit and cruised through the slightly busy town. If he thought he could rattle her with this juvenile game, he was in for a surprise; her nerves had been tested in circumstances far more dire than this, and she had survived.

She had errands to run, things she would have done over the weekend if she hadn't been overwhelmed by that nightmare vision. She didn't let his presence stop her; if he wanted to see what she did after work, he was in for a real treat. She stopped at the cleaners to get one of Renee's dresses she had made the mistake of wearing to work once. Next stop was the library, where she returned two books and picked three more. Then she went to the neighborhood grocery store with the prerky teenage clerks.

At every stop, he parked as close to her as possible, twice right beside her, and waited until she returned. When she came out of the grocery store, he watched as she wheeled the cart, loaded with four bags, to the back of her car. She put her foot on the cart to keep it from rolling while she unlocked the trunk.

He was out of the car and standing beside her almost before the sound of the car door slamming could alert her. Her head jerked up, saw nothing and then looked down. His eyes were hidden by a pair of very dark supposed he wore sunglassed with to make him look scary since there was almost zero sun out at the moment. However he looked comical and she had to bite down on her lip to fight a smile off.

"What do you want?"

she asked in a cool, flat voice. He reached out one big hand and effortlessly lifted a grocery bag from the cart into the trunk.

"Just helping you with the groceries."

"I've managed all my life without you, Deputy. I can manage now."

"It's no problem."

The smile he gave her was humorless, mocking and deeply annoyed with her constant downplaying of his title. He stowed the remaining three bags in the trunk beside the first one.

"Don't bother saying thank you."

Bella shrugged.

"Okay."

Turning away, she unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. The parking space in front of her was empty, meaning she didn't have to back out; she pulled out through the space in front, leaving him to park the cart or do whatever he wished with it. She wasn't in the mood to be gracious. She was tired, depressed, and angry.

Worse than that, she was frightened. Not of Deputy Kiddie, let's be real. Her fears were much deeper than that. She was afraid of the monster who had butchered Anne JonesAnd she was afraid of herself.

By the time she stopped at the second traffic light after leaving the grocery store parking lot, he was right behind her again. The man really had a talent for getting around in traffic. The sight of her house wasn't as enticing as it usually was. She was wryly certain that its sanctuary was going to be violated...

Just as she had expected, he pulled into her driveway before she had time to cut the ignition off. He got out of the car and took off the sunglasses, tucking them into his shirt pocket.

"What now? Or did you come all this way to help me carry in my groceries?"

"You said you could manage them without my help. I thought we'd have a little talk."

Someone came out next door. She looked up and saw her neighbor, Louise, standing on the porch and staring curiously at them. Bella waved and called out a hello refusing to let Deputy kiddie ruin her neighbourly affections. Unfortunately so did he.

"Nice to see you again,"

he called. Bella controlled her temper. Of course he had already been out questioning her neighbors; she wouldn't have expected him to do otherwise. He had made it plain this morning that he was very suspicious of her.

Despite what he had said, when she opened the trunk he plucked all four bags of groceries out, clutching two in each hand.

"After you,"

he said politely. She shrugged; if he was willing to carry her groceries, she was willing to let him. She unlocked the front door and held it open for him, then followed him inside and directed him back to the kitchen, where he placed the bags on the table.

"Thank you,"

she said.

"Why say thank you now, when you didn't before?"

She lifted her brows and turned her back on him as she began putting away all her purchases.

"You told me not to. What's on your mind, Deputy?"

"Murder"


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Did you find out anything interesting about me today?"

She asked, keeping her back turned to him as she placed canned goods on a shelf. He didn't reply, just broodingly watched her. He wasn't about to keep her informed of his progress, or lack of it.

"Let me tell you, Today you found that I've never been arrested, never had a traffic ticket, and that to the best of my neighbors' knowledge, I don't date or have anyone over. I pay my bills on time, don't use credit cards, and don't have any books overdue at the library, though I would have if I hadn't returned those today."

"Why don't you tell me again about Friday night?"

He said. His tone was sharp. She had neatly outlined his day, and he didn't like it. The anger that had simmered in him all day was under control, but just barely. The lady definitely put his back up. He could see her shoulders tense.

"What part didn't you understand?"

"I'd like to hear it all. Humor me. Just start at the beginning."

She turned around, and she was as pale as she had been that morning, when she had related the story for the first time. Her hands, he noticed, were knotted into fists at her sides.

"Does it bother you to talk about it?"

He asked coolly. He hoped it did.

"Of course. Doesn't it bother you to hear about it?"

"Seeing it was a lot worse."

"I know,"

She murmured, and for a moment the expression in her eyes was unguarded. There was pain in those dark depths, and anger, but most of all he saw a desolation that punched him square in the chest.

He had to clench his own hands, to prevent himself from reaching out to support her. Suddenly she looked so frail, as if she might faint. And maybe she was just a damn good actress.

"Tell me about Friday night, what did you say you were doing?"

"I went to a movie, the nine-o'clock one."

"Where?"

She stared at him. Mystic Falls had only one cinema

"What movie did you see?"

He asked trying to ignore the stupidity of his previous question.

"Wait—I may still have the ticket stub. I usually put it in my pocket. I haven't done laundry since then, so it should still be there."

She came back in only a minute and gave him the ticket stub, being careful not to touch him as she let the small piece of paper drop into his hand.

He looked down at the ticket stub in his hand; it was computer-generated, with the name of the movie, the date, and the time printed on it. It proved that she had bought a ticket; it didn't prove that she had actually watched the movie. He hadn't seen it himself, so he couldn't ask her any pertinent questions about it.

"What time did you leave the movie?"

"When it was over. About eleven-thirty."

Bella stood tensely beside the table.

"Coming home, what route did you drive?"

She told him, even the exit numbers.

"And where were you when you had this so-called vision?"

Her lips tightened, but she kept her composure, and her voice was steady.

"As I told you this morning, I had just left the expressway. The visions have always been very… draining, so I pulled off to the side."

"Draining? How?"

"I lost consciousness,"

She said flatly. His eyebrows rose.

"You lost consciousness,"

He repeated disbelief so plain in his tone that her palm itched with the urge to slap him.

"You mean you fainted from the stress?"

"Not exactly."

"What, exactly?"

She shrugged helplessly.

"I'm taken over by the vision. I can't see anything else, I don't hear anything else, and I don't know anything else."

"I see. So you sat there in your car until the vision ended, then calmly drove home and went to bed. If you're so certain that you're psychic, why did you wait over two days before telling the police? Why didn't you call it in immediately? We might have been able to catch the guy still in the neighborhood, or maybe even in the house, if you'd called."

Bella's face lost its last tinge of color under the lash of that deep, sarcastic voice. There was no way she could explain what had happened six years before, why some of the details had confused her until she wasn't certain if she'd had a flashback or if the knowing had returned.

Her eyes tightened and holding her gaze straight at Jeremy's she fished her phone out of her jeans pocket. Raising the little flip device to her ear she called 911 and asked to talk to Chief Forbes

"Hello chief. I have one of your mutts here who forced his way in and refuses to leave. Will you come pick it up or can I put it down?"

Then she smiled and handed the phone to Jeremy.

"It's for you"

She said sweetly


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Damon was lounging on a low branch of an apple tree right outside the living room window of the sugary light blue house the psychic and Jeremy had gone to.

When he had hit a stone wall with her neighbors that afternoon he had been resigned but for reasons he couldn't understand or excuse, he set to follow Jeremy as he tailed Bella Swan.

Since he couldn't expose himself to them he chose the old and trust method of turning to a crow and caught a ride on Jeremy's car roof. If a crow could smirk, this one would be smirking like crazy.

The smirk got even wider as Jeremy was chased away by Liz's threat to drive over and drag him away by the ear. Then the smirk was gone as a fit red and white cat ran through the open windows and straight on his feathers. With a hiss Damon flew away from the offending teeth and claw fur ball.

"You think I should have told him about the patrolman, Kitty?"

The furball decided not to pursue him at her mistress voice. Instead it trotted over to one big patio lounge chair, jumped on it right in the middle and rolled on its back offering the white belly for petting mewling a slow meow.

Bella didn't refuse and sitting on the chair besides the cat she began gently stroking and petting the soft fur. Damon watched amazed as the frosty attitude was gone and Bella literally let her hair down playing with the remarkably playful fur ball.

What patrolman though?

"You're right Kitty. Deputy Kiddie wants to act like a brat; he'll have to be treated like one"

Damon almost choked on the laughter that begged to be released but couldn't and watched oddly interested as Bella returned to the patio holding a fresh corn that she proceeded to prop and grill on the recently turned on bright yellow griller. A hungry cocow escaped his lips making his eyes widen.

"Hungry?"

Bella asked him as if she expected him to reply. cocking his birdie neck tot he side he gave her one of his old, patterned "you should be committed" glares and she widened her eyes

"If you'd lived my life Mr. raven, you'd talk to animals as if they'd reply too"

Damon flew from his perch to the fence and landed a few feet away on the arm of the chair the cat still occupied. A few seconds later Bella lounged between the crow and the cat and hesitantly she extended one hand to the crow. Taking the liberty to begin pecking at her corn Damon let her pet his soft black head.

"This is fucking weird but you remind me of someone Mr. Raven"

Damon stopped pecking immediately and raised his icy blue eyes to lock with her deep brown ones.

"However I'm not crazy enough to pursue this"

She finished and turned her attention to the corn and the yogurt not even trying to stop Damon or the cat from stealing bites of her snack. Damon watched her as she brought then tot he patio a large red bag with papers that looked like methhead drawings and sat there quietly putting stickers on them and then began outlining her next lesson. the cat had long ago curled by Bella's leg, sated from the snack, and was sleeping deeply even if she kept one eye half open observing Damon as if he'd attack Bella the moment both green eyes would shut.

As the sun fell and the sky turned a rich golden, Bella sighed and leaned backwards bringing one hand to absently stroke the white fur of the purring fur ball.

"Twilight... Again"

She sighed and closed her eyes. Damon furrowed his brows; well he would have if he had any brows. What about twilight had her so sad all of a sudden? Without commanding the big black wings to move he flew a couple inches closer and prodded with his little head her limp hand.

"I should be paid for my hand jobs"

Bella muttered without bothering to open her eyes and lifted her hand to gently stroke Damon's raven form. If she had her eyes open, she'd be greeted by a lewd smirk as Damon's brain took a nosedive to his pre-mystic life.

The cat hissed at him suddenly awake and possessive. Or was it protective? Whichever it was, Damon flew up and away quickly. He stopped flying a few blocks away and returned to human form and stretched. Being in bird form was good for tailing but extremely tiring on his body. Then he began strolling the quiet roads again.

No matter how enticing, or how good her hand jobs were, Bella Swan had an alibi and he had to get her to talk to him. Time to work that Salvatore charm


End file.
